Right at home in the other Portland

There I was, standing in front of a case of cheeses eating Golden Ridge Blue Velvet with wedges of Red Gravensteins, forking into a cool crab salad with dices of spicy ginger gold apples, stabbing a thin slice of salmon, cold smoked with Scotch whisky. The food was great, and I was reminiscing as to how far we’ve progressed in the last few years.

It wasn’t all that much different than the feeling I had the week before at the Slow Food Nation Taste Pavillion; the difference is that I was in Portland, Maine, and looking over the beautiful displays of local cheeses, vegetables and fruits while standing in Browne Trading Company. Portland is a town with only 64,000 residents about a tenth of the size of San Francisco, yet in terms of food, it’s every bit as sophisticated.

Last week I met more than a dozen colleagues from around the nation on the Maine coast and discovered a vibrant food culture. When a food-writing colleague from Atlanta told me about her dinner at Fore Street, she said, “It’s the East Coast version of Zuni Cafe.” I went there the next night, and she was right. With its brick walls, wide open wood-fired oven and glassed-in produce walk-in at the entrance, it has a similar sensibility.

The food created by Sam Hayward, was every bit as good, but grounded in Maine products: a tomato tart roasted in the wood oven with local goat cheese and snippets of fresh herbs; warm lobster BLT with apple bacon, butter-poached lobster, butter lettuce, garden tomatoes and chive mayonnaise; roasted oyster mushrooms piled onto a puddle of roasted garlic and tomato sauce.

For main courses, the restaurant features Atlantic hake fillet with smoked bacon, caramelized shallots and lemon sauce, or a beautifully browned marinated chicken spit roasted and served with chard, or an equally enticing spit-roasted rabbit.

Other meals during my three-day stay impressed me just as much at such places as Hugo’s, where chef Rob Evans creates stylized presentations based on classics such as lobster cassoulet with flageolets, bacon, lobster sausage and crumbles of chicken rillettes that mix in and flavor the seafood. He also offers sweetbreads; beautifully sauteed and presented with soft, braised pistachios, crunchy fried capers and caramelized cauliflower; and a unique take on the ubiquitous tomato salad.

He peels sweet Sun Gold cherry tomatoes and places them in a bowl over a thin layer of olive oil panna cotta, with wisps of frisee, crumbles of aged asiago and black pepper crostini; the flavors are familiar but the presentations and textures show off the ingredients in an enticing new light.

After the first night, I doubled up on dinners because there were so many places that deserved attention. I’ll long remember the cool vichyssoise soup with a knob of crab in the center at Evangeline, and the custard-like brain croquettes. Then there’s the impossibly flaky spanakopita and lightly breaded chicken livers with a vinegar beurre blanc at Emilitsa, a Greek-inspired restaurant.

This is a city that truly loves food; in fact, there’s a bookstore, Rabelais, devoted only to culinary works. In addition Standard Baking Company, located in a parking lot below Fore Street, offers some of the best croissants I’ve eaten in this country. On just about every corner, there was something that caught my attention.

It was an eye-opening and awe-inspiring trip because it showed what’s going out outside of the centers of power. It may not be San Francisco (especially in the winter, I’m sure), but it made me feel right at home.